Womb Raider
RELEASED 5 FEBRUARY 2007 | 18 | Blu-ray
Directors Alexandre Bustillo,
Julien Maury
Cast Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle, Nicolas Duvauchelle
Second Sight’s second New French Extremity revival this year is a homeinvasion thriller with a taboo twist: violence to a pregnant woman. The title refers to both the intrusion visited upon the widowed Sarah, and the attacker’s objective – her unborn child.
Set mostly in one gloomily lit house, it begins in slow-burn fashion, and initially feels pretty formulaic. However, the fact that the villain is female – Béatrice Dalle’s nameless, babygrowsniffing Woman – shakes things up. Despite a significant body count, it’s the violence meted out to Sarah which really hits home. It’s a grimly visceral experience, with household objects (like the Woman’s gleaming scissors) deployed in ways that inspire appalled gasps.
Featuring an agitating score, and an effective reveal of the Woman’s identity, Inside only really wobbles when completely setting realism aside in one scene – and with some crude CG sequences of a baby in utero, which haven’t aged well. While not on a par with, say, Martyrs, this is a horror it’s hard to imagine returning to repeatedly; the kind you survive, rather than savour.
Extras Two separate critical commentaries both feature a few astute observations and as many longueurs. A video essay (15 minutes) which compares Sarah to the Virgin Mary may have you muttering “I wouldn’t bother” at every occurrence of the phrase, “One could argue…”.
There are five interviews (totalling 102 minutes): directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury; star Alysson Paradis (Vanessa’s sister!); producer Franck Ribière, DOP Laurent Barès, and the stunt coordinator. The producer is long-winded, and Barès’s accent a bit of a barrier, but these are all worthwhile. Among other things, we learn of an earlier draft involving a placenta-eating male serial killer; Dalle’s habit of crying, “Give me more blood!”; and the use of a platform to eerily “float” her about in one shot. The Limited Edition set adds a 70-page book and six art cards. Ian Berriman
Emmanuelle star Sylvia Kristel was the directors’ first choice to play the Woman, but she turned the script down.